


Warped Mirror

by leonanette



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Disturbing content ahead, Just because Corvo's Low Chaos doesn't mean he's nice, Low Chaos (Dishonored), Murder, Possession, The Golden Cat, implied suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 13:56:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11579445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonanette/pseuds/leonanette
Summary: At the Golden Cat, Corvo decides he doesn't want to leave the Pendleton twins to Slackjaw. He has his own bright idea of how to get rid of them...





	Warped Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> This is my last fanfiction on the first Dishonored game. It's also one of the most disturbing fanfictions I've ever written, though it's for Low Chaos Week 2016. Hey, Low Chaos isn't the same as nice. In some cases, it can be worse than High Chaos.
> 
> Yes, I took a few artistic liberties with the Possession power. I just think it's more terrifying if the host has some idea of what's happening to them but can't do a thing about it.

Emily was safe out of the Golden Cat and seated in Samuel’s boat. Good. Corvo didn’t want her anywhere near the place when it all started. Samuel only nodded when Corvo said he would be back soon. Corvo whispered in his ear to take Emily straight to the Hound Pits if he wasn’t back in an hour and Samuel only nodded again without changing expression. As Corvo walked away, Emily seemed unsuspicious and started asking him if they were going to a nice place. Samuel was a good man. He would be good company for Emily for…as long as it took.

Corvo made the journey back to the Golden Cat, enveloped in calm. Slackjaw’s offer was tempting. He was sure he had the men and the means to make them suffer but his method was just too…impersonal. With Campbell, it had been so satisfying to push the Heretic’s Brand into his face himself. Leaving the Pendletons to someone else left him feeling cheated. He needed to do it himself. He would be breaking his no-kill rule but he felt more than justified after all they’d done.

Just one question remained to him as he ignored Granny Rags’ and went through the VIP exit. Which one? They were both deeply immersed in Burrows’ treachery, both guilty of hitting Emily when she didn’t do as she was told and neither had shown any redeeming spark.

But, Custis had been the one to mock Jessamine. The one to openly sneer at Emily’s parentage at that dinner. Corvo hated Custis more. So, he decided as he Blinked into the main room, it would be him.

He found Custis in the Smoking Room. He was ranting about the success of the Boyles as if the plague and Jessamine’s death had never happened. The courtesan was scared of him. She trembled as he talked about the need to beg money from his cousins. He would be begging for less trivial things soon.

Corvo had saved up a lot of rune power and had forsaken more convenient powers for this but it would be worth it. He focused his powers of Possession, reached out and shoved into Custis’ mind.

It was strange to be suddenly in such a thin, gangly body, like wearing a coat that was much too tight, but Corvo had no time to waste. He turned on his heel and made for the door.

The courtesan only asked where Custis was going once before she fell silent. It seemed she’d learned long ago not to question him. It suited Corvo well.

He opened the door and drew his sword. Let every guard see Custis with his sword drawn.

Custis’ consciousness was overcoming the shock of being rudely pushed out of control. It was starting to fight back as Corvo made his walk down the stairs. It was rather like fighting the urge to be sick. Corvo pushed him down and did not allow his pace to falter. Custis would get his body back eventually but Corvo could fight him for now.

Corvo wondered what exactly he was fighting. The mind? The soul? Or, just the body? But, that was for people like Piero to puzzle over. He had reached the door of the Ivory Room. The Madame was right. He couldn’t hear anything of what was going on inside.

And, yet, the room was unlocked. Careless. The twins were so sure they had got away with it, it seemed.

Morgan was having his hand massaged by a courtesan while boasting about a parliament triumph. They both stopped talking when Corvo made Custis fling open both of the doors as wide as they could go.

Morgan’s shock dropped from him when he saw what he thought was his brother and he laughed, “Custis, you’re drunk again. You’ve forgotten to knock, haven’t you?”

Corvo was reminded of how much he hated Morgan’s sneer but he didn’t need any more incentive at this stage. Custis’ consciousness or whatever it was seemed suddenly aware of what Corvo was planning and fought against him harder. Corvo had to stand still a moment to fend him off, in which Morgan’s smirk broadened, “Disappointed, dear Custis? Hoping to catch me at something a little more adventurous? If you linger a little longer and close the doors, you might.”

But, Corvo managed to overcome his host.

He pulled back Custis’ arm and backhanded Morgan hard across the face, “Ouch! Custis! What was that for?”

He wasn’t flung backwards so much as she had been. Custis wasn’t as strong as the assassin but his body had strength enough to grab Morgan by the throat and squeeze. Morgan grabbed the arm with both his to try and pull it away. Just what Corvo wanted.

Custis knew what was going to happen and Corvo could almost hear him screaming. He would win back control soon but Corvo only needed another few seconds.

He raised the sword and, with an almighty force, plunged it into Morgan’s stomach.

The courtesan began to scream, “MURDER! SOMEONE, HELP!”

Morgan didn’t scream. He didn’t look like he had even realised what had happened as Corvo pulled out the sword with a squish and flung Morgan’s weakening body as hard as he could to the ground.

At last, he relinquished Custis’ body and, while Custis was still disorientated from the sudden return of control, Corvo Blinked behind the screen, peering out to watch through his Dark Vision. Anyone who had witnessed the scene would think he had just been a trick of the light.

Custis had come to himself and guards were rushing in. Custis saw his brother bleeding on the ground and flung himself on his knees, gathering his dying twin in his arms. Custis wasn’t silent. On the contrary, he was muttering disjointed phrases like, “No – no, I didn’t - I wasn’t in control, no - something took over…I don’t know…it wasn’t - ”

Morgan would still have some strength in him before he died. He used it to clutch his bleeding stomach and croak, “What…what did I do? Custis…tell me what I did wrong.”

He couldn’t get anything else out, not even a plea for revenge. He didn’t hold out as long as she had but died without waiting for Custis’ response. The smell of death pervaded the room, stronger than the stale perfume and incense lingering in the air.

It didn’t feel right. Morgan should be urging Custis to avenge him. Custis shouldn’t still be talking after his brother had died, shouldn’t be begging him to come back. He should be silent, unable to protest his innocence in shock.

But, the guards were reacting as they should. They had all seen it happen. There could be no doubt in their minds. They didn’t need another person to tell them Custis did it, not a Spymaster or a High Overseer.

Custis still acted wrong. As what may have been the captain approached him with a sword drawn, he began to scream. Long, agonised, inhuman screams of grief that seems to ring into every corner of the building. More footsteps approached. Courtesans and their clients came running from the rooms. Corvo could vaguely hear what he thought was Bunting, demanding to know what was going on while he was stuck in the Silver Room.

Custis fought hard against the guards that dragged him away. He punched, kicked and clawed at them, forgetting his bloody sword on the floor, “ _No! Get away from me! Get away! Let me go! Don’t take him away from me!_ ” And, still, he screamed even as he was dragged out of sight by three Watchmen. His screams still rang in Corvo’s ears as he made his way back over the rooftops.

When he got back to the Hound Pits Pub, Treavor had an extraordinary story to tell. Custis had apparently gone mad and killed Morgan in a strange fit of violence that passed as soon as it had come. Corvo agreed with the tale, saying he had seen it happen just as he was about to take care of them himself.

Havelock seemed to accept it, glad that both were out of action in any case. Martin looked suspicious but didn’t say anything. Treavor simply muttered that it was a ‘nasty business but we mustn’t question providence’.

The latter tentatively approached the subject again just before Corvo set out for the Boyle party, “I visited Custis in prison.” He said as Corvo was about to turn to Samuel’s boat, “Just after Morgan’s funeral.”

Corvo paused and turned his gaze back to him. If Treavor was nervous, he didn’t show it. By the smell of him, he’d taken a bit of Dunwall courage before this conversation.

“He claimed he knew what was happening when Morgan was murdered but he couldn’t stop it. That something else was controlling his body.”

“The ravings of a man who can’t admit his own madness.” Corvo said, smoothly.

“Yes, of course. I don’t believe a word of it. He’s quite mad. I could see that as soon as I saw him. He’s a total mess, constantly crying and refusing to eat or sleep. He’s so bad that the Lord Regent has put extra guards around his cell every hour of the day and night in case he commits a desperate act of violence on himself. It’s quite…unnerving to see him in such a state. He was by no means unflappable but he never fell apart this badly.”

When Corvo made no comment, Treavor cleared his throat, nodded and made an excuse, leaving Corvo to stew in his own disappointment. Custis wasn’t supposed to go to pieces. He was supposed to hold out a silent defiance, even as he was tortured for a confession.

His disappointment was compounded when the Loyalist Conspiracy crumbled and he returned to Dunwall Tower to find Custis still in his cell, still utterly broken by grief. Corvo scowled when he looked through the bars at the man huddled in the corner of his cell, weeping into his knees. He didn’t even look up when he told him his last brother was dead.

He fixed the guard schedule to keep Custis as little monitored as possible but, still, he made no escape attempt. Not even when Corvo slipped a key through the bars of his cell during a shift change. Or when Corvo admitted he had been the one who murdered Morgan.

At last, as Emily’s coronation drew near, Corvo decided he’d had enough of waiting for what would never come. He slipped into Coldridge Prison during the shift change (it was too easy, he would have to address that), picked up a coil of rope, dropped it in front of the quiet Custis’ cell and possessed Custis again.

This time, Custis’ consciousness made no objection as he made him reach through the bars and knot the rope into a noose.


End file.
